Congressional Appropriations Decisions Could Impact the U.S. Cattle Industry
As Congress works through the process of continuing to fund the federal government, industry leaders are closely watching how decisions in Washington could affect agriculture. We spoke with Tanner Beymer of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) to get his take on the appropriations process and how it could directly influence the U.S. cattle industry.
“Every year, Congress has to pass appropriations bills in order to keep the government funded. And that’s very important because it gives Congress the chance to, once a year, look at all the different funding levels at the various departments and agencies of the executive branch and really start to meet the needs of those agencies, depending on what’s going on at any given time.”
A key concern for the cattle sector is funding for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) under the USDA. In most years, APHIS funding remains stable, but current biological threats are creating new challenges.
“For example, typically when we look at funding for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service at USDA, we don’t necessarily need a ton of additional appropriated dollars to be allocated to that agency because we’re typically on autopilot. But we’ve been dealing with a highly pathogenic avian influenza jumping over into cattle species. At the same time, we’ve got a new world screwworm situation developing in Mexico. That pest is rapidly moving north towards the southern border of the United States, and that’s an opportunity for Congress to invest more resources to USDA to be able to meet those challenges.”
Though Congress is supposed to finalize federal funding by September 30th, that timeline often slips.
“Typically, Congress is supposed to get that done every year by September 30th, but oftentimes what ends up happening is they’re not quite ready for prime time, and so they need to pass a continuing resolution while they wrap up negotiations on full-year appropriations. And that’s exactly what the House of Representatives did. They passed a continuing resolution, or a CR, to keep the government funded through November 21st of this year.”
As budget talks continue, cattle producers are watching closely, knowing decisions made now could significantly impact animal health, trade, and farm-level operations in the months ahead.
Audio Reporting by Dale Sandlin for Southeast AgNet.